


Asphodel, bezoar and aconite

by Isidar_Mithrim



Series: Marauders Era & Jily [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Canon Compliant, Comedy, Drabble, F/M, Flash Fic, Flashbacks, Hogwarts, Hurt/Comfort, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Missing Scene, One Shot, Parallelism, Potions Class (Harry Potter), Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 21:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20414944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isidar_Mithrim/pseuds/Isidar_Mithrim
Summary: It’s Harry Potter’s first Potions Class, and Severus can’t help looking at him, hating his unruly black hair.Then, he sees his eyes.{Or, my personal intake about Severus’s choice to ask Harry those infamous questions during his first Potions class. I find the alternative – that he simply wanted to humiliate him – as much or even more plausible, but I hope you’ll agree that interpretation doesn’t have the same flair…}





	Asphodel, bezoar and aconite

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Di asfodelo, bezoar e aconito](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/513478) by Isidar Mithrim. 

> Disclaimer: This work contains several direct and less direct quotes from ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone’ (Chapter Eight – The Potions Master) and ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ (Chapter Nine – The Half-Blood Prince).

_“I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes…”_

He keeps talking, but his mind is wandering.

He tries to ignore the compelling need to look at him – to openly _stare_.

Keeping his thoughts in check should be his specialty, but this time the thoughts take over.

Eventually, he can’t stand it anymore. He _has _to turn, he _has _to speak to him.

“Potter!” he says suddenly. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

He scans his unruly black hair and his round shaped glasses, and he’s viciously convinced the boy won’t be able to answer.

Only then he notices his shining green eyes – and that’s why he gives him a second chance.

“Let’s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?” he asks, hiding pain with sneer.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?” he insists, hoping against hope to see those eyes lighting up in understanding – hoping against hope that it’ll be enough to relieve his sorrow.

“I don’t know.”

Three words, but they’re enough to hate him – because Lily, unlike him, would have been able to answer.

**

_“Good morning, good morning, my dear boys!” said the Potions Master, Horace Slughorn, opening the roll call on the desk. “Now then, let’s see who we have this year… Avery, of course, Slytherin as your father… I taught him too, you know?”_

_The young Avery nodded with indifference, and Slughorn looked back at the roll call, running his index finger on the page._

_“Ah, Sirius Black…” he said with regret. “A real pity you ended up in Gryffindor, m’boy! I believe Phineas isn’t very pleased.”_

_“Nor his mother, judging by the Howler she sent him!” teased with a grin the boy with unruly black hair and round shaped glasses._

_Beside Severus, Lily rolled her eyes, but Slughorn chuckled. _

_“Very amusing, Mr…?”_

_“Potter, professor. James Potter.”_

_“Ah, you must be Fleamont’s boy, then!”_

_“The one and only. At least I hope so!” joked Potter._

_Several students laughed, but Severus glared at him in disdain._

_Slughorn then resumed checking the roll call, and his finger almost got to the bottom of the page before he found another name he must have considered worth of mentioning. _

_“And at last we have Mulciber, another Slytherin, of course.”_

_He closed the roll call without even bothering to read the other names out loud, but he sent a long glance toward a Gryffindor with light brown hair before starting the lesson._

_“Now then, since we’re done with the introduction I want you to pay full attention” said Slughorn, jovial. “You must know that the first, vital step to become a good Potioneer is being able to recognise the main ingredients and to handle them appropriately, and that’s going to be the focus of our first lessons!”_

_Severus hardly resisted the urge to huff. Not that Slughorn was wrong, but he had hoped to immediately have the occasion to put into practice what he’d learnt on the books over the summer._

_“To make the whole matter a bit more entertaining, I selected personally three rather interesting ingredients” Slughorn kept explaining, gesturing at three metal cloche perfectly laid on a free desk near is own. He apparently had a thing for theatrics, and even if Severus considered it quite petty, he couldn’t deny to be somehow intrigued. “Who’s going to guess which ingredients will earn points for their Houses!”_

_Slughorn looked hopefully at his Slytherin pupils, but he didn’t spare a glance for Severus. ‘As they are any better than me’ he thought bitterly, but then Lily elbowed his arm to caught his attention, smirking at him with challenging glint in her shining eyes, and Severus couldn’t help pushing those sour thoughts aside to grin back at her._

_“Let’s see… what do we have here?” he asked, lifting the first cloche and revealing a bunch of tubers not much different from carrots, even if more pointed and whitish. Asphodel’s root, he reckoned._

_Lily’s hand shot in the air, a toothy smile on her face. Only when she glanced at him and her expression turned in one of perplexity Severus realised he’d forgotten to raise his own hand._

_Slughorn looked at Lily as he’d noticed her for the first time, and Severus didn’t enjoyed much the curious glint in the professor’s eyes._

_“Yes, my dear?”_

_“It’s asphodel root, sir.”_

_“Very good, very good! Do you also remember how it’s usually utilised?”_

_“As a powder, sir. For example, _ _adding powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood we’d get a sleeping potion incredibly powerful, known as the Draught of Living Death.”_

_“Excellent!” exclaimed Slughorn, delighted._ _“Five point for Gryffindor! Now then...” – Slughorn lifted the second cloche – “…can anyone tell me what our second ingredient is?”_

_This time Severus’s hand raised in the air with Lily’s, but Slughorn picked her again, even if Severus belonged to his own House – he didn’t resented his choice much only because he loved watching Lily’s eyes brightening in delight._

_“It’s a bezoar, sir, and we can find it in the stomach of a goat” she explained. “It’s an effective antidote for several poisons.”_

_“Outstanding!” exclaimed Slughorn, bemused. “Five more point to Gryffindor! May I ask your name, my dear?”_

_“Of course, sir. It’s Lily Evans, but I believe you wouldn’t need to ask, if you’d read all the students’ names” she said with cheek. _

_Severus felt shocked and impressed at the same time for her witty retort, but he was thoroughly annoyed by Potter and Black’s laughs and cheers._

_Slughorn seemed amused as well. “Oho! I guess I’ll have to keep that in mind at the beginning of the next lesson, then. Lily Evans, you said… as Luke Evans, the Comet’s manufacturer?”_

_“Definitely not, sir. My parents are Muggles.”_

_Severus didn’t miss Avery and Mulciber disgusted glare, but Slughorn widened his eyes in delighted surprise, his gaze too fixed on Lily to notice._

_“Remarkable! Really remarkable, Miss Evans! Can you tell me what the third ingredient is as well?” he asked, lifting the third cloche and uncovering a violet compound flower that Severus immediately recognised as aconite._

_“It’s wolfsbane, Sir” said Lily._

_Slughorn smiled, delighted. “It is indeed, my dear. It seems almost foolish to ask at this point, but do you know _ _what’s the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”_

_“Well, they’re actually the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite.”_

_“Wonderful! Another five points for Gryffindor, then!”_

_“Thanks, sir” said Lily grateful, trying to bite back her pleased smile._

_**_

“I don’t know.”

Three words, but they’re enough to hate him –

because Lily, unlike him, _was _able to answer.

Because Lily, unlike him, _was gone_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :D  
Feel free to drop any feedback, suggestion, correction about the story or the translation, opinion about headcanons and so on ^^  
You can also find me on [tumblr](https://isidar-mithrim.tumblr.com).


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